March 27, 2008

Despite the terrible news of yesterday evening, life has to go on. Today we’re looking down in an area called Highgate. It has a large Victorian cemetery. Two large Victorian cemeteries, in fact. But it also has fantastic views out over London, the Millennium Wheel and the square mile. I might even be able to see the building where Ray will be working. We hope the ‘estate agents’ have the right sort of place for us. They call it ‘property’ over here, which makes it sound like something out of Charles Dickens.

Lisa seems almost happy now. That makes us suspect something is going on. She hasn’t left the house, though. She hasn’t really left her room. Perhaps she’s reading some of those creepy novels that we saw in there. You know her morbid tendencies. It’s possible that it has something to do with the deaths of Betty, Joey and Mary Jane. We would prefer not to think that.

March 26, 2008

We’ve just had some of the most awful news. At 10:30 pm a lawyer called. Betty and Joey and their beautiful sixteen year old daughter Mary Jane died tragically in a car wreck. We are devastated. We broke the news to Lisa, who also seemed appalled. Although we did not know them very well, except online, they were lovely lovely people. Our hearts, and our prayers go out to their relatives.

A long day on our feet. We saw one or two interesting properties. London is so big, and cold. Real estate here is incredibly expensive. If it weren’t for Ray’s company relocation scheme, I don’t think we’d find it possible to afford more than a small apartment. We need more than that, to live a decent life.

The best property today was this one:

Lisa has been quiet in her room. We are banned from going in. It’s too incendiary to do so.

We just set up this site so you can see what we’ve been doing, over here in England. (Ray did the technical stuff and I have taken over the purple prose.) Let us have any comments. (Keep it clean, boys.)

For those who don’t know ‘The Story So Far’, we’ve done a houseswap with a real sweet British couple, Betty and Joey. They have a daughter a little older than Lisa. We met them online, in a support group we found for parents of ‘troubled teens’. And when it became clear that the best thing for Lisa and Mary Jane was to get them as far away from all the bad influences as possible, we decided that a swap was the best thing. I guess we kind of sprung it on the girls, but that seemed the best thing to do: not give them any chance to be sneaky and prepare. Betty and Joey were so strict about this that they didn’t even allow Mary Jane to go back to the house – just took her straight from college to the airport. It’s tough love, I know, but it works.

(For those who want to know, Lisa is fine now. She kicked against the move but, once we got in the house, seemed to start to accept it. She isn’t breaking things any more, at least.)

We thought you might like a guided tour, as we’re going to be living here until we find someplace more permanent.

Here’s the frontage:

The hall:

Living room. Isn’t the ‘sofa’ great?:

Kitchen:

We’re leaving out the bathroom. It’s black and white tile. Very nice.

Lisa’s room, while we’re here:

Our bedroom:

The spare bedroom, if anyone cares to come visit. We’d love to have you come stay:

I think that’s all for now.

Tomorrow we start househunting. No rest for the wicked. We want something big and old. A bit like this.